The Birthday Girl

The birthday girl is the center of attention.

Her friends surround her. They exude love and care and attention, each one of them dedicated to making her special day that much more special. They are guard and companion and friend all wrapped up into one. They are there to insulate her and protect her against the harsh realities of the world for one perfect day.

And she loves it and she doesn't hide that she loves it. I don't think her smile leaves her face once during the whole night out.

She is beautiful, no doubt about that. She is cute and adorable and stunning all at the same time. A little pixie of a woman with curves that draw the attention of men in the bar and I don't register why she doesn't draw the same attention from me.

With her being the center of attention, she becomes the goal of virtually every man in here. I see them notice her and plan their approach. I see them walk up and either wind up rebuffed by her circle of companions or else brought into the fold to gain a moment of her favor. Like a queen and her subjects.

She entertains them but more than that she feeds off their affections. There is no malice in her actions though, she is riding on too high a cloud to want to harm anyone.

I can see that she's attractive. I can feel an attraction from her but it's the pull of gravity instead of simple desire. What I want, it's harder and deeper than what every other guy in the place wants from her. I don't want to be in her bed and I don't want her in mine.

I can't put my finger on it.

Something about her is almost unsettling to me. She's never glanced my way once this whole night and yet I feel like her fingers have slipped under my skin. I feel myself crawling with this uncomfortable sensation, a truth I have no way of understanding and one that is so different from any I've ever felt before.

I want to want her and I wish that the pull I was feeling was as bluntly simple as the almost primal masculine need that I've felt before. If all I was feeling was the craving to fuck her that would have made more sense to me and would've been something I'd felt before, but this is something new.

It's not her fault, any of this. She is nameless and blameless in this. The birthday girl is simply present, a stand in and a reminder for me of what I could have had.

Friends. Care. Attention.

I want all of it. I want what she has. I want to be her right now more than I want to be with her. I want to know, just once, what it's like to have people care.

And I realize that and I accept it only too quickly. I do my level best to ignore the party on the other side of the room and I nurse the same drink I've been nursing all night long and I wish that I could pound this back and add a dozen more to it but I'm too practical to really lose control like that.

I sip instead of swallowing and I avoid the gaze of the bartender who is bitterly eyeing the seat that I'm occupying and no doubt calculating the money that another, better, customer might have spent in my stead. I make a note to leave a good tip and I clench my eyes shut when I see the birthday girl relax into the arms of someone in the reflection in the mirror.

And I wonder whether I've ever been touched like that even once in my whole damn life.

The man beside her has bought her a few drinks. He's the one that made it through the wall of her friends and he's the one that makes her blush. Maybe tonight they'll wind up back at hers or at his and there will be a moment of confidential admission in the midst of the warm passion of their embrace where they will acknowledge a little bit of vulnerability.

Maybe tonight will be the start of their story. Does that happen? Do people do that? Is that a thing?

Is it possible to fall in love at first sight and appropriate to acknowledge that way too soon? Do people really say things like 'I love you' while they're inside each other?

Do people really fall in love anymore?

I don't know. I don't know about any of it. I don't know what it's like to whisper a confession of something more when you’re lying with someone in bed, because not once in my life have I ever even gotten close.

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